The Pyramid by Ismaíl Kadaré Read Free Book Online Page B

been repressed in people’s minds by the unbearable fatigue, by the heat and the fear of punishment, and had never previously emerged. Everyone in Egypt and far afield knew full well that tens of thousands of souls would have to spend their whole lives building a tomb, but even so an awareness of that reality had never been put in words, let alone into words strung out along one of those tunes that awake ambiguous feelings in the hearer, of the kind: “Dear mother, to say that I shall end my days building a tomb!” and so on . . . Some inquisitive minds asked: “And what will happen once the pyramid is finished?” To which another would reply: “What does it matter to you, you poor fool, what happens afterward, since you won’t be there to see it!” Someone else would explain that after this pyramid they would put up another one for the Pharaoh’s son, then another for his grandson, and so on, in perpetuity, until the end of time. The representation of life as an unending succession of pyramids cast most people into the deepest gloom; others, fewer in number, felt vague resentment It was perhaps more that latter sentiment than the slowing down of the work that most aroused the foremen’s and superintendents’ disapproval They had heard from their predecessors, who had it from their own predecessors, that this feeling was not new, that a similar slackening had occurred long before, prior to the seven thousandth stone, perhaps even prior to the four thousandth, and things had got so bad then that several stones had been shattered. That’s what had happened, but afterward measures had been taken, mouths had been shut and minds too, things had been put back in right order, just as the stones had been put in their right and eternal places in the pyramid. Since they were convinced that the slack period would pass, the superintendents and foremen bided their time with confidence, for everything that happened around the pyramid had a cyclical nature and was thus destined to end. Another period would come, with other stones, and everything would be like before. Meanwhile, at least according to what people said, reports of the current situation had gone right up to the Pharaoh, whose reaction had been awaited but was never expressed, and in the end things were left as they were. Apparently a blind eye had been turned in order to emphasize how certain it was that the Pharaoh would live for a very long time, so that there was no need to be worried about the slow rate of the building work on his tomb. This line of reasoning had even been pushed so far that one unfortunate member of the government (so people said) had proposed, as a logical consequence, to break with tradition and to suspend work on the pyramid altogether, so as to show clearly that the Pharaoh was immortal Daring initiatives often lead to results quite at odds with their intention, and the dignitary who thought up this bold argument paid for it with his life. He was dissected alive, beginning with the tongue that had proffered the idea, and going on to the throat, the lungs, and the hands that had participated in the speech, and so on, until more or less nothing of his body remained. This mutilation signaled an immediate about-turn. A new plot was uncovered in the capital The first wind of fear could be smelled on the work sites long before any message or order reached them. The situation was turned around from top to bottom, A surge of tension ran around all four faces of the pyramid like a shudder and immediately made people move faster around the stones, lower their voices, and keep their eyes down to the ground. Grumbling, and conversation in general, became less frequent. And not only words, but also the ideas that prompted them, tended to dry up. That was how great droughts announced themselves: each day the winch would haul up less water, proving that the well was running dry, A dry wind blew or rather pressed on people’s temples and served to clean